


The Weird World of Club 76

by chucklingChemist



Series: Alternian Snapshots [13]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: 1st person perspective, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Adults on Alternia, Canon Typical Classism, Drugs, Excessive Swearing, Fictitious Gonzo Journalism, Gen, Loosely Inspired By Studio 54, Plot? What Plot?, Slavery mention, Troll terminology, drug mention, headcanon heavy, no beta we die like men, tobacco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24954085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucklingChemist/pseuds/chucklingChemist
Summary: Gonzor gets into the most exclusive club on this side of the hemisphere, the exclusive and extravagant Club 76 in the seadwelling city Sindaria, for the purpose of writing his newest article forTrolling Stone. And while he wasn't sure what to expect, with rumors from everyone in the out talking about how it might be inside, it still wasn't what he was expecting.Standalone piece in the Alternian Snapshots series.
Series: Alternian Snapshots [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1260209
Kudos: 2
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	The Weird World of Club 76

**Author's Note:**

> This one was written for the "Drinks, Smokes, Swears" prompt on the Banned Together Bingo 2020, because why focus on one of my characters who I've barely written anything when I can write about Hunter S. Thompson, but a troll about it. And he even gets one of my longer standalones! Though, funny enough this is something I've been rattling around in my head for a while, ever since I learned what Le Chic's Freak Out! was about, and the bingo finally gave me the excuse to write it out. 
> 
> Feasibly it takes place any time within Alternian Snapshots, though I imagined it was at least.....before Mayola really decided to make a serious attempt at being Empress.
> 
> Also shout out to all the Persona 5 fanfics I read while writing this because definitely borrowed the way the fandom writes the rumor-hearing aspect of the game into their fic. So thank you, theoretical P5 fanfic writer who also reads Homestuck OCs that'll see this. You're a lifesaver.

Club 76.

One of the most prestigious, exclusive, absolutely fucking expensive clubs anyone could find their happy ass entering if they were looking for a good dancehive. The line to get past the bouncer, filled mostly with affluent highbloods in various hues, easily wrapped down a back alley in the gilded streets of Sindaria. If the troll was famous,  _ especially  _ if the troll was a famous seadweller, it looks as though they could slide right on by. 

And what was the bouncer looking for, from what my early research tells me?

Affluence.

From my vantage point, on the other side of the street in a bench where I scribbled away anything I could hear, his booming voice made his requirements clear. He’s gotta be micced: otherwise how else would I be able to hear this guy over the chitter and chatter of the populous? If you weren’t “on the list” -- a list I immediately made a note to investigate if the possibility should arise -- you had to have a face recognizable to the masses. Not small time fame, least from what I had gathered from prior investigation. Full, big-time A list figures who any just-hatched troll crawling their way out of the caverns would know their name. Most of the people in the line were not such. They preen and prune, lining up in the flashiest of feathered fru-fru fucking outfits, all eyeliner and puffed chests with the hope if they  _ look _ the part of a celebrity or up-and-coming to do, they'll slide through the bouncer without notice. 

They do, once in a while, if they’re particularly stunning. Or so I've heard. 

Go to any tourist trap of a bar or lounge in Sindaria and you can find swaths of trolls swearing up and down how they made it into a club so damn extravagant it defines the word. Certainly enough trolls claim they gained entry I would have seen at least one get in tonight, through sheer statistical significance or whatever the fucking term is. From there, it’s all talk about the shit you get to do once inside: an expensive free range where everything is allowed thanks to the shady, greased up palms of the violets running it. Booze runs like water. Artisan drug of choice comes out in a silver platter like an hor d'oeuvre. You want cigs? Forget cigs. Take the finest cigar made from the backs of rust slaves 3 planets over that gives you a nicotine rush so sharp your thinkpan’ll feel like it could pierce through your skull. 

I haven't seen any random unknown troll get in yet. At the time I scribble this in my notes, I've sat dutifully watching for at least 3 hours. Left only to smoke a cigarette and get a pick-me-up shot of espresso. 

The hulking, gilded double doors open with a start. They haven’t opened like this yet. When people get let in, there’s a smaller door off to the side for patrons. You can catch it easily whenever someone actually gets let in. So let me tell you, nothing stops your whole train of thought like the terrible screech of some entitled troll being thrown out of a club overtop the creaking and groaning of doors too decorated to carry their own weight and the distant  _ thumpthumpthumpthump  _ of roaring club music. 

“Fuck off!” I hear the bouncer scream. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it. However, throughout the day it’s been reserved for people unable to get inside, not poor sods too pathetic to withstand Club 76 once they made it.

The body in question pitched onto the street like yesterday’s trashheap is a tealblood. Tall guy with definite muscle(a rarity for their geeky caste, I gotta say), with fluffier hair than usual for his kind. Big platform shoes that physically lit up when he walked matched well with the weirdly low cut shirt and tight leather pants. This guy was a legislacerator, probably. And yet his desire to get in makes him dress like he’s an employee at the Red Room, not a big shot hunting down rioters for fun.

Luckily for him, the guy doesn’t end up face planting. 

Unluckily for me, this means he catches me staring at him.

The guy gets this mean look that screws up an already busted up face. He stomps over to my location and I swear he’s gonna punch me. 

I’m glad he doesn’t, in a way. It doesn’t change the pang of fear that goes through my blood pusher seeing him.

“What the  _ hell _ ,” he sneers, “are you writing about.”

He reaches to grab at the collar of my flannel, pulling me close enough I can smell the sickeningly-sweet alcoholic Faygo on his breath. It forces me up into a standing position, and my pen and pad clatter down to the bench. I assume that was his intention from the start.

I give him my best, most apologetic smile, as if I give a shit about what this troll thought about me. “Oh sir, I’m so very sorry. I’m just doing some people watching. Some observation, if you will. For my magazine. The club’s attracted quite the stir amongst the peons of the guttercastes, you see and I’m writing a piece exclusively for them.”

“Oh yeah? What kinda piece?” He finally lets go of me, giving me the chance to whip out the silver little case in the breast pocket of my shirt. Inside it are business cards of all types in case of this type of situation, and I flip through until I find one that’ll be convincing to him. I could be honest and tell him it’s for  _ Trolling Stone _ but I’ve got that feeling in my gut telling me it’s not a good idea. 

When he gets the business card, he squints hard at it. I imagine all the booze running through his system is making it difficult to read. 

“Gon-zoooor Ten-errg,” he reads. The card drops unceremoniously to the ground, but the posture change from defensive to friendly didn’t go unnoticed. 

Oh, to be drunk, stupid and trusting. I can only ever accomplish two of those. 

“And you doin’ a report on Club 76?”

“You got it.” I reach back into my breast pocket to pull out a cigarette and match. I don’t bother offering one to him, and he doesn’t bother asking. “Of course, I gotta get in if I want anything substantial in my piece and I’m sure you know the whole situation when it comes to journalists comin’ inside.”

There’s shouting from across the way. Angry. No,  _ furious _ . Someone’s pissed over there, and with all the other noise I can’t tell what’s being said. With the crowd, it’s impossible to tell who’s yelling. I quirk an eyebrow in curiosity. Not that Mr. Tealblood can see it underneath my sunglasses.

“You seen that before?”

His thumb juts over his shoulder, but he doesn’t bother turning around to investigate. “Instagoon clout chasers. Nothing special.” He shrugs helplessly. “If you’re caught coming here for clout they ban you for life. You ever seen the List?”

I take a puff of the cigarette, dark green smoke escaping my lips. “I regret I have not. Trolls talk, though. You on it?”

The tealblood guffaws. “Ah, for sweeps maybe I was on the in list. Betchu I’m on the ban list now! Apparently the owner doesn’t want legislacerators anymore so something.” The longer he talks, the more I notice his glancers honing in on my cigarette.

Damn. 

“You gotta ‘nother one of those? I’m feeling a smoke myself.”

I pause. 

I don’t want to give him one of my cigarettes. Call it lowblood intuition or paranoia or whatever but, tealbloods, especially the law types that get their heads patted on by the Empress, give me an uneasy feeling in my gut. This guy? No exception to the rule.

But talk about someone who knows the ins and outs of Club 76. 

I don’t need an out. I just need an in.

My hand lingers over-top my cigarette case again. Doesn’t touch it. I have to wave a carrot in front of his face somehow. “On a condition.”

His glancers gleam under the artificial light of the underwater city as brightly as the sweat starting to appear on his brow. “What? You want some kinda promise I’ll defend you when you get your ass in trouble?”

I smirk. “Something like that.”

It works.

The rest of the first day goes much better after my introduction to Mr. Teal. He takes me to an especially seedy bar far away from Club 76 that smells like old, unpleasant cheese and is lit as well as anyone imagining such a place could expect. Quite frankly, I’m surprised such a place exists within the polished Sindarian glass walls. This is a bottom tier Gust Hollow establishment for lowbloods burnt out of cash and energy from the regime drilling them into the dust. It doesn’t fit well with the shiny, lacquered image of my current (albeit temporary, the locals don’t like me here) residence. 

He orders more shots for himself, all of them equally putrid looking and rancid but  _ God _ if he doesn’t fucking shoot them down like a damn professional. I offer a couple cigarettes to go with them in exchange for information on how to get into the club.

He grins. “This is the only building in the whole damn city that doesn’t give a shit I smoke in the bar. You believe that?”

I do. Not to say seadwellers are necessarily health conscious. Tourists though. Tourists don’t like it. 

They’re fine with the slaves, the casual hemoism, the murder and torture of lowbloods that wander into locations they don’t belong but they draw the line at smoking.

Once he gets going too, boy does he get going. They do not say  _ teals talk _ for no reason, let me fucking tell you. This is the same man who a few hours ago wanted to punch out my lights for staring at him funny and now here we are like old chums straight out of the Fleet. 

He gives me the info I need. The right way to dress and present myself to slip on by and get inside. Look weird and unique, but stay in your lane as a lowblood and don’t wear colors my caste would generally be seen in(“well, you’re an  _ oliveblood _ , but that’s so damn close you may as well be a lowblood to anyone in there.”). Make sure I play up I’m a journalist, but not looking to get in writing a piece. Just so celebrity tabloid up-and-comer looking to make some connections. And if I get in, there’s a separate entrance in the back for people on the “in” list who don’t feel like waiting for the future. I’ll have free access to any future visits.

“Make sure your clothes are cotton,” he informs me. “Gubs get banned for coming in with anything made out of that plasticy fabric. Apparently the owner of the club says it’ll melt under the lights.”

I write it all down dutifully. When the two of us finally part, it’s so late in the day it may as well be night time. Not that I have to worry about the harsh sunlight this deep underwater, but seeing 6:27 p.m. blaring on my palmhusk gives me a distinct reminder how long the tealblood ended up holding me up. When I get to the tiny respiteblock in an otherwise luxurious temporary hivestem I snagged for a few weeks, I furiously type up all my notes and everything else I remember from the preceding events before I crash. Hard. Think I ended up sleeping for a solid two nights before I finally ended up waking up.

From there I do a quick organization of everything I need to get going with my infiltration of the club. Burn way too much money on expensive clothing that meets every check mark the tealblood gave me. Grab a swanky, candy red smoking jacket and pair it with plaid slacks. Comb back and style my thin black hair (don’t do drugs, kids). Get some makeup to hide my more low-casted traits. Make my face little more angular, even with the sunglasses and all that. Tuck my notepad into an inside pocket but keep my palmhusk recording audio at all times.

“You gotta drop the sunglasses,” the tealblood says in my head. It was one of his suggestions from a few days ago. “The only trolls who wear sunglasses in a dark building are the ones trying to look like the whole toolbox.”

Let the record state I do not drop the sunglasses. 

I get in the line to enter by about 3 a.m. This early in the night, it’s still mostly a line. After all, the club doesn’t start accepting people until 4. The trolls waiting to get in look largely about the same as the ones I saw initially. The same garish and gaudy combined with luxurious and lush. Hell, it’s even the same indigoblooded bouncer from the other night menacing everyone at the door.

The damn place hasn’t even opened yet.

When the place opens at 4 p.m., it is to my great shock of something more amazing: the line moves. Quickly. It mostly involves the bouncer throwing trolls off to the side and telling them to get the hell out of his face before he does something typical to his caste. In no time at all, I find myself mere feet away and able to hear him with total clarity, even if the other half of the conversation is too difficult to make out.

_ Yeah, you look good I guess. Get in there. _

_ You sure you dressed for this? Yeah I know you have a partner who made it in, but he’s dressed perfect for this. You look like a hoofbeast stamped in mud and it splashed all over you. What? No of course that’s a metaphorical statement, unless you literally have mud underneath your clothes. Now get out of my face and get changed before you attempt to make it back. _

_ No, I’ve never heard of you in my life. Didn’t they tell you Grubtube isn’t a real job? _

_ Go fuck off and find a different club if you’re so insistent on dancing tonight, okay? _

“Tough crowd,” I mutter to myself.

The troll directly in front of me, a glamorous looking violetblood with claws sharpened to cull and painted as red as my jacket, turns around with a wide smile.

“The owners of the establishment look for the true entertainers,” she remarks. 

“Grubtubers don’t count?”

“Grubtubers don’t put in the same effort those established in the business have.” She throws her pink feather boa that had been slowly falling up and over her shoulder. “Surely you understand, yes?”

I nod. Now’s not the time to start a fight.

Grubtubers are, on average, more likely to be lower castes than those working in traditional film and television. The material is more novice, but only by virtue of many of them lacking the experience. It’s also made with a lot more damn effort than I’ve seen of several of the last seasons of  _ Slam or Get Culled  _ or  _ Aliens In Ancient Alternia _ , and those two shows are still lauded as high quality. After all, for anyone to learn to take advantage of whatever the newest, unintuitive algorithm their dev team pumps out next have to have real thoughts floating around in that thinkpan of theirs.

The violetblood seems satisfied with my lack of answer. She turns back around, smile turning into a self-satisfied and victorious smirk and, a few minutes later she makes it through the system check without any fuss. 

When I come up, the indigoblood takes a long, long look at me. “New face,” he says.

“I heard about this place from a friend -- journalist partner, we both write for  _ Sea Star _ ? -- and wanted to try it out,” I say smoothly. In an instant, I’ve procured a business card for  _ Sea Star _ and hand it to him.

He snatches it out of my hands. “You’re dressing dangerously for a little time  _ Sea Star _ writer you know.”

“Isn’t that the best way to live?” I slide my hands into the pockets of my slacks. “Better to live well and fast so we have a tale for a maker is what I think.”

The bouncer side-eyes me, but then, in an instant, I see him grin. And those stark white fangs? Those are far more dangerous than anything I’ve said today.

“You know what? I like you. You got style about you. Get on in there.”

He swats my back up toward the smaller door I scouted earlier, mentioning something about flash photography as he does so. Which, as it turns out isn’t even a door. No, the smaller entrance is really just a darkened entrance marked off by a pink beaded curtain. This confirms the big double doors only existing for show and glamor to anyone here for the spectacle of the club. So sure, sometimes they use it to throw out troublemakers but that’s still part of the grand show. This way, even those unable to observe whatever spectacle is inside can still watch the bouncer entertain and enthrall if someone’s becoming a problem.

Not to discredit the show on the inside. To get inside, you walk through a darkened hallway lit only by tiny lights along the floor directing you to your correct location, like the place is a damn hive haunt instead of a club, directing you to walk along the outer edge before you get inside. You can vaguely hear the music, but mostly you feel the club beats pulse and throb from the pounding bass.

Once you finally enter it’s a fucking sight.

If you’ve ever divulged in some of the more obtuse science fiction, you might have watched the adventures of an alien time traveler parading around with well-dressed trolls through space-time in what looks like a tiny box, but is really a multi-story, time machine with over hundred various blocks. And every time the newest troll looks inside the box the first time, they stare completely awestruck at its size.

That is me right now. I’m that troll.

The place is  _ huge _ . From my vantage a few days ago, I could’ve guessed the impressive floor length, the wide bar, maybe even the upper decked longue. The chandelier dangling from the ceiling looks heavy enough it could send the whole place down if it wanted. Hell, it’s low enough I can see it visibly shake with each bass thump. If the music were louder, I’d bet my whole magazine the thing is making noise too. All that glass reflecting the bright, multicolored lights of the club are ever known for being soundless, after all.

Along the outer edges of the place are trolls I have no memory of seeing come in, dressed in outfits bizarre enough they’re burned into my thinkpan. Shirtless, beefy trolls in nothing more than cutoff jeans and curly wigs. A troll (gender unknown) in a well pressed suit and what can only be described as a glittery disco ball covering up their whole damn head. Two young women - and three young men, though they’re at the opposite end - are head to toe in plant leaves. Pierced trolls who’s exoskeleton may as well be metal at this point. Trolls dress in all sorts of costumes, and only the ones in the plainest of maid or butler outfits appear to actually be staff.

I make my way to the bar. After all, I’m not a dancer. Nor do I want to draw attention to myself. And the bar, raised above the rest of the dance floor enough to observe the new world without subjecting myself to being outed as who I really am. Snippets of conversation catch over the voice recorder as I push through the sweaty, dancing masses. 

_ They gave you an ounce of their party favor? Lucky!! _

_ Do you think Elliah will ever come here? I think she’d be fantastic entertainment. _

_ Is it true the place is under investigation for tax evasion? _

The bar is equal parts decadent and expensive. The barstool my ass is sitting on is probably worth more than my whole fucking being. And the drink? 

Oh the glowing drink they hand me  _ definitely  _ is.

Most the patrons coming up to the bar wear flamboyant outfits akin to the wadingbeasts common to the swamps. Colorful clothes and neon makeup make them stand out among the blacklighting at the bar, which makes everything look different. Only highbloods, though. Anyone’d be pressed to find someone lower than a jade walking up and spending time. 

Speaking of, I’ve never seen so many jadebloods in one place. Granted, I’m a dude. A dude who is not a jade. Last time I must’ve seen the caverns was back when I was a grub, and I sure as shit don’t remember those nights. But tonight, I’ve seen at least 10 jadebloods. All various ages. Shockingly mixed gendered. Never seen so many male jadebloods out and about. Every one of them in black fishnets and leather straps criss-crossing their torso in elaborate patterns. Their faces are stark white, almost glowing underneath the light. They come up and meander around the bar in a pack. All ten go up, all ten go back out to the dancefloor. For brief moments, other women wander into the pack. They don’t leave.

I sit there, having expensive drink after expensive drink while I keep my glancers on the area in front of me. Still haven’t seen any lowbloods. Granted, this is Sindaria. Seadweller cities, even (if not especially) the ones in air breathing areas end up becoming notably inhospitable to low castes. I’ve reason to believe the air breathing ones attract the seadwellers lousy with slaves. Seadwellers that spend all their time in the ocean can’t keep air-breathing trolls as livestock, after all.

Any caste higher than jade has a good chance of showing. There are plenty of other tealbloods, though not all in the style of Mr. Tealblood I met a few nights ago. Most of these look more the type I’d actually see in a courthive or hunting down criminals. (If the rumors swirling in the building about the owners being guilty of tax evasion, they might be undercover.) Many of the ones dressed more casually (so to speak) hang around the jadebloods or cobaltbloods. They’re never much seen alone. I’m not sure if that’s because tealbloods crave that social interaction or the number of higher castes combined with actual knowledge of how the law functions scares them to go alone. Possibly both.

The cobalts are in high frequency, every single one of them attempting to look as scary as possible. The exceptions to this rule are ones I vaguely recognize as models and actors whose every action is made to look intimidating, but approachable about it. At one point, I catch one of them with half their long hair shaved off and a studded denim jacket passing a bag of neon green powder to another troll. 

The only thing distinguishing most the indigobloods and the violetbloods from each other is the inclusion of fins. Both dress like they’re flashy celebrities or literal royalty. Some of them granted, are. Don’t think I don’t know fleet hero Beldae Vigasi in her short time back on planet when I fucking see her, even if the woman’s in a short skirt and corest instead of her fleet fuchsias. But there’s just as many that I’ve never seen their picture or name before in my life, yet they flounce around with their cigarette holder, dressing like the Empress or Heiress Apparent like they are actually them.

Naturally, there’s no fuschias. Club 76 isn’t the scene for any of the heiresses, no matter how exclusive it might be.

What’s curious is the lack of purplebloods. I think at first I’ve missed them among the hustle and bustle of the crowd, but let’s be honest: while their hulking gait can be confused for indigobloods, clowns in even a fraction of their getup are impossible to miss. Yet, I only see a couple, and not one of them in facepaint. The jadebloods outnumber them. The ones that are here aren’t in face paint nor clown clothes, but dressed to the nines like they’re actually seadwellers and not purplebloods. I suspect this is due to the tensions between seadwellers and landwellers, in particular the purple caste. But why any purple would want to show their face is beyond me.

Now what’s really impressive are anyone under jade. While I haven’t caught any actual  _ lowbloods _ yet, there're a few olivebloods dressed like Lost Pupas meandering around. Most of them avoid contact with me, but one of them sits down. 

His getup is impressive. Looks more like a cosplay of a character than a real troll. Horns twist and turn around like a purpleblood’s, and he’s added clip ons to give them branching features. Hair styled so half of it covers his face and dyed olive green.

“You look lonely,” he says.

I shrug. “Comes with the territory.”

He frowns. “Territory of what.” The notable drop in tone, the lack of question in his statement, is not lost on me. But I keep moving on, treating it like he did ask me a question. How else should I respond anyway? 

“What I do.” I take a long swig of my drink, feeling my head swim for a second. Even inebriated as I now am, I’m not stupid enough to be specific about who I am. “Weirdo with sunglasses indoors, right?”

The oliveblood cocks his head curiously, his hair swishing and covering more of his face. “Oh, no one’s a weirdo once they end up Club 76, dearie. Or,” he giggles, covering up his face with the hand not on his drink, “we’re all a little weird, just looking for a place to be.”

“What about the weird rusts looking for a place?” I ask casually.

“Well…” now it’s his turn to take a drink from some sort of frozen concoction “...I suppose those lost little baabeasts need to make their way down to this little corner of the world.”

“And if they can’t?”

His smile turns sad for the briefest moment, and I’m not sure if I’ve reminded him of the world outside, or how much time he’s spent here. “My sympathies go out to them.”

The song changes to something with a bit more  _ pop  _ and a bit less  _ thump _ . The oliveblood takes my hand and I let him pull me out to the dance floor. May as well. When in the hive city, do as the natives of it do and all.

It’s a good time, even if the whole thing is a hazy blur of sensory overload. One thing to watch trolls go out there, yet another entirely to do it yourself. The colors and sounds alone are overwhelming. At one point I feel something chilly wrap around my ankles through my clothes and look down to find a smoke machine’s been deployed. Other trolls join, but the oliveblood wordlessly guides me through avoiding the ones who might be threats. Could’ve sworn I saw a hoofbeast at one point, with some troll dressed in a slim white dress riding it but that might’ve been the booze. Overall, not much to comment on. Glad I experienced going to a dance club and actually dancing, even if it’s not much my thing. Bit too organized.

Okay, except for the hoofbeast but I can’t tell you what the fuck was up with that.

When the couple pop songs end, I depart away from my partner for the time and stop. He looks disappointed, but understanding all things considered.

I find myself meandering over toward the upper deck lounge, taking everything in. Still haven’t seen a single caste below olive. 

I do however, catch someone else. The violetblood from earlier.

She beckons me over to the black couch she’s lounging on with a whistle, cigarette in one hand and martini in another. Her pink feather boa drapes across her little black dress like she’s a classy actress out of a noir film here to sing a smoky piece while the lead solves a mystery.

“Come over here and sit,” she says.

Blame it on the alcohol, or the desire to talk to someone far messier than the oliveblood earlier, but I sure enough sit down next to her. She, in turn, takes the opportunity to slide her whole body so it’s pressed up against mine, arm wrapped around my own like a slitherbeast. I can smell the smoke on her breath just as well as I’m sure she can smell the booze on mine.

“Look who made it in,” she croons. “Not every day do we get an olive boy in candy red walking in. Most of them like to play up the stereotype.”

“Seems to be the pattern here.”

She giggles. “Well yes, but that’s what so enter-t _ aiiii _ ning! You lower castes playing up what makes you special brings it out, I think.” Then she sits up straight as an arrow, glancers bright. “Oh! Let’s get you a drink in celebration.”

I’m not one to turn down a free drink from a seadweller willing to dump money. What I’m not expecting is her to disappear off into the crowd, only to come back a minute or so later with a collared rustblood in a maroon suit carrying a platter of shots.

“Is he…”

Judging by her quick reaction, my face must’ve blanched, not that I felt anything. “Oh no, I would  _ never _ bring one of my own here. Goodness, here I was forgetting you’re an oliveblood with that getup! This man is paid staff, don’t you worry.”

She hands me a small glass of something brilliantly pink and we clink it in a toast. “To the man from  _ Sea Star _ ,” she says brightly. It’s with enough enthusiasm you can almost forget she implied she’s got collared rustbloods somewhere. 

I down it. Tastes good, but whatever flavor I’m having I sure as hell don’t know.

We talk for some time. Most of it’s pretty on par with what I’d expect and she leads the conversation. At first, I fight it. Try to get it to talk about the supposed tax evasion claims, but she either knows nothing or isn’t willing to say anything. Am I surprised though? No. She’s a seadweller. This is what they do. 

In fact, she tells me a lot about the other patrons here. Unsurprisingly, most of them are highbloods. If not highbloods, they’re probably celebrities. If they’re not celebrities, they have to be interesting somehow. Doesn’t matter if they’re good interesting or bad interesting, you just have to supply some kind of interest to the bouncer or established patrons.

That switches the conversation to herself, how she’s been on the list for as long as the place has been open, and still lives for the thrill of waiting in line and getting accepted. Makes her feel like the common people, she tells me, that she needs to dress just as much like a freak, though she won’t say it; rather, it’s “ _ the entertainment _ ”, in a tone that doesn’t sound like it, to get in as any other troll. How (supposedly) there are times she’s been rejected entirely because she didn’t realize it was a theme day and no one tells her. All to experience “being common”.

“It’s so much fun,” she slurs after her third shot, body wrapping around my own once again for support, “to do things with the common troll!”

“Lotta highbloods for it to be the common troll.”

“Oh, but they’re not  _ seeeea _ dwellers. Don’t you realize?” She looks up at me, face scrunched up. “Never mind. You’d never understand. Air breathers never do.  _ Sea Star _ journalists or not.”

The music cuts. The place goes silent. It makes her body go rigid against me. “What’s going--”

She cuts me off with one of those well manicured claws up against my lips as she shushes me. I want to stand up and see what the hell is going on in the club’s main floor, but her body’s strong enough it keeps me down.

“To every troll in the club here tonight, we’ve got a surprise guest stopping by free of charge for their tour!” a voice, masculine, booms. “Anyone familiar with the technological stylings of the craftiest pair of mustardbloods we’ll ever encounter, let’s get hype!”

She sighs, something I feel more than hear over the crescendoing electronic beats reverberating. The lights flash a mismash of red, blue and yellow in what I figure is their eye colors. “Well, so long as they  _ stay  _ as performers,” she mutters. 

“Not good enough for entertainment?” I ask, bemused.

“They’re not the right type for a club like this. After all, there’s entertainment and--” she pausesfor a drag of her cigarette to gesture and gestures to the area below us, sneering, “ _ \--entertainment _ . You know?”

I think that, better than anything, sums up the attitude of many of the patrons. Those at best are either disconnected from the real world, or desperately attempting to disconnect. At worst, it’s an exclusivity club for the elite to remind themselves how they’re elite and use the other castes as their fodder. 

I was wrong to assume early on the bouncer was looking for affluence. Not all the trolls in here are affluent. The olivebloods, and myself, are described as, at best, “living good.” Any jadeblood venturing out of the cavern isn’t exactly one living the life intended for a jade, but if that’s beneficial to them or not is hard to say. And who knows with teals and cobalts. Only indigos and higher are promised to retain their wealth unless they royally fuck up more than they’re allowed.

What are they though? That violetblood says it best.

_ Entertainment _ .

Entertainment to the upper castes who can get in with no effort. Entertainment to the regulars who dump more money in this place than I’ll see in all my sweeps. Almost a shame because, if that oliveblood I met was any indication, this place might be a safe haven for these guys. They can be weird and dress however and not worry about highbloods and seadwellers getting their asses twisted about a little thing like self expression. But it only masks the same old bullshit we have to deal with on the daily. The highbloods still use us as props. Do whatever the hell they want while God forbid a lowblood prank them. Still carry around the same feelings. Still look at us like we exist for them, be it labor or cannon fodder or  _ entertainment _ .

I’m not sure if, by the time I end back up in my hivestem, it’s those thoughts that swim my head as I relisten to my recordings , or the pounding panache and muscle fatigue from too much liquor that makes me feel worse. I suppose I’ll know in due time.

**TROLLING STONE EDITOR’S NOTE** :  _ After reports that Club 76 has made more money than any illegal operation on-planet, it has opened investigation by Her Imperious Inquisition (HII). No findings regarding tax evasion have been found yet, though the club currently is tied up with a mess involving delivering liquor to underage trolls. We reached out to the owners and they refused to comment. Trolling Stone does not have access to any members of HII to release an official statement. _


End file.
